The Sword Guy Podcast

Battle of Nations with Beth Hammer

Episode 34

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/battle-of-nations-episode34/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

In this episode I talk to Beth Hammer. One of Beth’s favourite pastimes is “This is Sparta” kicking people through fences as part of Battle of Nations competitions. Based in Seattle, USA, Beth practises HEMA and Escrima, and is now enjoying the freedom of Battle of Nations fighting. In this episode we explore what this fun activity involves, and also talk about Beth’s other hobby of fireman’s lifting men much bigger than herself, including me!

Photo by Olivia Blake

Beth is also an artist, specialising in sculpture and making models. And when she is not doing all that, she also finds the time to be one of the organisers of Swordsquatch, which is an amazing annual event for swordy people. We talk about what goes into organising and planning it, and if you listen there’s also a mention of my purple sparkly unicorn underpants, which you'll want to see:

You can find Beth at @mudskipperrodeo on Instagram, and her Patreon for her tiny monster sculpture is www.patreon.com/mudskipperrodeo.

 

How to Make Swords, with Craig Johnson

Episode 33

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/how-to-make-swords-episode33/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Craig Johnson is Manager of Arms and Armor, a sword lover's dream job, as they make a wide variety of items from the Medieval and Renaissance periods to faithfully recreate the look, feel, and function of historic weapons. In this episode, we talk about recreating medieval swords as faithfully as possible, modern fashions in sword design, and the intricacies of sword manufacture. If you are interested in anything to do with swords and how they are made, this episode is a must-listen.

Craig has been involved in Historical European Martial Arts / Western Martial Arts since the early days of the community and he is the secretary of the Oakeshott Institute, a non-profit organization, established by Christopher Poor in 2000. The Institute is named after the late Ewart Oakeshott, a leading authority on European arms and armour. Ewart spent a lifetime researching and collecting swords and Craig tells us about continuing his legacy, and we talk about how being able to handle original swords is how you can really come to understand them and the people who wielded them.

In this episode Craig mentions blog posts about heat treating swords to imbue them with different qualities, which are linked for you here:

HISTORICAL SWORD MAKING – HEAT TREATMENT Pt1

HISTORICAL SWORD MAKING – HEAT TREATMENT Pt2

HISTORICAL SWORD MAKING – HEAT TREATMENT Pt3

HISTORICAL SWORD MAKING – HEAT TREATMENT Pt4

For sword typology, (type XVIII, etc.) see Oakeshott’s Typology on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakeshott_typology

One of Craig’s top two “golden swords” is this Swiss sabre (from the Wallace Collection). We talk in some depth about what makes it so special, and you need to see the pictures of it to understand:

Related to this, here’s a blog post about complex hilted longswords: Complex Hilted Longswords

https://www.arms-n-armor.com/blogs/news/complex-hilted-longswords

Later on in our conversation we discuss the difference in size between medieval steel gauntlets and their modern counterparts. You might find this blog post interesting about medieval sword grips: https://www.arms-n-armor.com/blogs/news/medieval-sword-grip-size

Arms and Armor are on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and YouTube.

 

Pole Dancing with Swords, with Kelley Costigan

Episode 32

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/pole-dancing-with-swords-episode32/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

In this week’s episode I interview Kelley Costigan. Kelley is an actor, director, pole dancer, fencer, performance combatant, adventurer and pirate, currently living in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, home of William Shakespeare.

Listen to our conversation to discover the Shakespeare connection that inspired me to ask Kelley to narrate my audiobook, The Theory and Practice of Historical Martial Arts. (It’s out now: you can probably find it in your audiobook app of choice, or get it directly from me here: https://gumroad.com/l/ttphmaaudio.)

As a child, Kelley was told that fencing was “not something that girls do”, but she has since made up for it after taking up HEMA in her 40s.

We also talk about competitive fencing, competitive pole dancing (yes, that’s a thing,) not being a Russian spy, and what Kelley would do with a million pounds.

In case you’ve never seen someone pole dancing with a sword before, here’s one of Kelley’s performances on Vimeo.

To find out more about Kelley, her website is www.kelleycostigan.com and you can also find her on social media, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

 

Why Swords are Cool, with Damon Young

Episode 31

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/why-swords-are-cool-episode31/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Damon Young is an Australian martial artist and philosopher, author of books like Philosophy in the Garden and the soon to be published in Europe, already out in Australia, On Getting Off: Sex and Philosophy. He has also edited a couple of books on philosophy and martial arts: Engagement, Philosophy and the Martial Arts, and Martial Arts and Philosophy: Beating and Nothingness.

In this fascinating conversation we discuss the importance of the study of philosophy when practising martial arts. How do we know the difference between bravery and foolhardiness? How can someone engage in violence and still be a good person? And perhaps, most importantly, why are swords so damn cool?

For Damon’s essay on why swords are cool, you can find the details of the Meanjin magazine article in Damon’s blog post here.

Damon has also written a series of six books for children, which he mentions near the end of this episode. If you would like to check them out, the first one is My Nanna is a Ninja, which is available in the usual bookshops. You can watch him reading it on YouTube here.

The transcription of this episode is on my website here.

 

Fencing in Russia, with Elena Muzurina

Episode 30

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/fencing-in-russia-episode30/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Elena Muzurina is a military sabre instructor, longsword champion and owner of a HEMA equipment company. Elena is a Russian champion – one of her proudest moments was winning at Swordfish – but HEMA is relatively new to Russia. In this episode we talk about what it is like learning Italian rapier and longsword in a country where there are very few sources translated into the language. We talk about the problems with fencing equipment, and what she would do with a million dollars to improve HEMA in Russia.

When listening to this episode you might not have caught some of the names Elena mentions, so here they are in case you are interested:

• Andrey Muzurin – Elena's longsword trainer and husband
• Vadim Senichev – translator of Fiore in Russian
• Kristine Konsmo and Carl Ryberg – HEMA in Sweden, fencers and Swordfish orgs
• Leonid Křížek – Czech Republic HEMA, trainer at Ars Dimicatoria school, instructor and researcher of Barbasetti military sabre method, writer
• Sergei Kultaev – Russian HEMA, longsword champion and trainer at FreiFechter Gilde, Saint Petersburg

Here is the Facebook page for Fox Tail Equipment: www.facebook.com/FoxTailEquipment And this is the online store: www.ft-fencing.com

You can find Elena on social media:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/elena.muzurina

Instagram: @silent_battle_song

YouTube: Silent Battle Song

Vkontate: vk.com/yelena_muzurina

 

Violence and Self Defence, with Rory Miller

Episode 29

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/violence-and-self-defence-episode29/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Rory Miller is a martial arts and self-defence expert and author of many books, ebooks and video courses, including “Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training and Real World Violence”, which is widely considered as one of the best books on martial arts ever written and I urge you to read it. Speaking of best books on martial arts, Rory and I have a chat about our top 5 favourites in this episode, so if you are after some new reading material, have a listen.

In this episode, the conversation goes in some unexpected places, including sailing across the Atlantic, from South Africa to Florida in a custom catamaran; being “raised by coyotes” in the desert; poo-flinging monkeys on Facebook; and a whole lot in between about self-defence and violence.

Rory’s Chiron Training website is here: https://chirontraining.com/ and his blog is here: http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/

 

Art and Fencing, with Nora Cannaday

Episode 28

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/art-and-fencing-episode28/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Nora is an artist and a fencer from sunny Southern California. She works primarily in watercolours and in illumination, though we cover a lot in this episode, including calligraphy, translations, making a living from your art and whether simply putting in the hours of practise is enough to get good. You can see an example of her work here with the logo she produced for the Spada Press:

In this episode we talk about how exacting and unforgiving some art forms can be, and the differences between different media in painting. Nora talks about the artist Lori Lamont who works exclusively in watercolour, and you can see her work here.

When we talk about fencing in the SCA scene in Southern California, we mention Nora’s painted fencing masks. Here are some examples:

This is the link to the Our Fake History podcast, which Nora mentions when talking about her thoughts on the Book of the Five Rings: www.ourfakehistory.com  

Here is the fanciest fuckoff piece that Nora produced using all the gold (listen at around 1hr 9min in). Credit for the calligraphy goes to Master Thomas Brownwell. Nora did all the gilding and painting:

Nora’s website is www.noracannaday.com and you can find her on the usual social media too.

 

Irish Stick Fighting, with Maxime Chouinard

Episode 27

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/irish-stick-fighting-episode27/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Maxime doesn’t do longsword. But he does practise Irish Stick Fighting, 19^th century sabre, and has a background in karate and kenjutsu.

 

In this episode Maxime describes Irish Stick Fighting, the challenges of finding someone to learn it from, and how he was able to bring it back to life as a martial art.

 

Maxime’s website, HEMA Misfits, is all about the fringes of historical martial arts, the less popular styles, and we talk about some of these less common forms of the art.

 

Content warning: In the second half of our conversation there is some pretty gory stuff about sword fighting injuries and how they were treated. (Maybe not for listening to over the Christmas dinner table!) Maxime's article on the subject is here.

 

Merry Christmas everybody!

 

 

Straight White Men with Swords, with Claire Mead

Episode 26

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/straight-white-men-with-swords-episode26/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

Claire Mead is an English/French freelance curator with museums and heritage sites specialising in making collections and programming more inclusive, specifically in terms of women's narratives and LGBTQI narratives. Claire also fences with foil and longsword. Since recording the episode she has taken the post of Programme Manager at the National Videogame Museum.

In this episode we have a fascinating conversation about how a traditionally white, male perspective of history has overlooked many women, people of colour and those from the LGBTQI community. Did you know that one of the foremost fencers of the 18^th century was black, and another was trans?

I mention two African-born emperors of Rome. These are: Lucius Septimius Severus, who was a Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna, at that time a Roman province in Africa. His eldest son, Lucius Septimius Bassianus, commonly known as Caracalla, was Emperor from 211 to 217.

In the second half of the podcast we talk about Claire’s webcomic The Girls’ School of Knighthood and also discuss depictions of women holding swords in art, particularly Judith slaying Holofernes. To see the paintings we talk about, see this episode's webpage.

 

To find Claire Mead and her work, visit:

Webzine: Girls’ School of Knighthood

Podcast: Bustles & Broadswords

Patreon: www.patreon.com/clairemead

 

Fire Eating and Fencing, with David Ito

Episode 25

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to https://swordschool.com/podcast/fire-eating-and-fencing-episode25/ 

To support the show, come join the Patrons at  https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

David Ito is a sport épée fencer, Kendoka, longsword practitioner, and a fire eater. He also does 100 burpees first thing every morning.

In this episode David tells us how he got into both fencing and fire eating, takes us through his somewhat intensive training regime, and shares good advice for anyone looking to get into teaching fencing as a career.

In the podcast you will hear David talk about a footwork training machine, and if you are interested to see it in action, head over to https://guywindsor.net/2020/12/the-sword-guy-episode-25-david-ito/ ‎to see the video.

We also talk about the effect of the covid pandemic and what we might expect a post-covid world to look like for martial artists.

To find out more about David and his work, you can find him on Instagram @ittofireshow, or at www.illuminair-entertainment.com. He also works at www.swordplayers.com and has taught at www.aemma.org, both of which are in Toronto, Canada.